Hellgate: London

There's a report over at the BBC today which claims that 2005 will be a bumper year for tourists coming to London:

Visitors from the EU rose from 5.7 million in 2003 to 6.5 million last year, while US visits rose from 2.6 million to 2.8 million.

All very interesting, but no mention of "a flood of demons and evil" entering the city, and no we're not talking about the Tory's immigration policies here. We're talking about Hellgate: London, the forthcoming PC game from the same development team which gave us Diablo.

Here's a bit of the backstory:

The Crusades were actually undertaken to fight back the minions of Hell, as was the charring of London in the great fire to wipe out the Plague. According to the fiction, the famous Knights Templar were the keepers of knowledge on how to battle these demonic forces. Unfortunately, these heroes underwent a charring of their own at the hands of a jealous King Phillip IV, who hated the power they held in the world at large. While the Knights Templar survived as an organization, their numbers were severely diminished and were forced to remain in hiding to stay alive.

Those Knights Templar...they get everywhere don't they?

Anyway - the idea is that modern society had 'forgotten' how to deal with demonic forces so when they come back they naturally head to London again and this time they tear the place apart.

Five years after all this takes place the 'few remaining survivors' (there's always a few remaining survisors) come out of hiding to see what's happenmed to their city...and blow away lots of ugly, demonic creatures.

Hurray.

All the geek details are over at ign.com if you want them, but suffice to say there's a lot of "Vulcan Bolters and "blasts of spectral energy" involved.

At least TfL will have a decent excuse for any delays in the London of the near-future.